The Dinosaur Project

Director: Sid Bennett (2012)

Starring: Natasha Loring, Matt Kane, Richard Dillane

Find it: IMDB

"The best dinosaur film since Jurassic Park!" goes most of the promotional material for The Dinosaur Project. Well, maybe, but it's also the only dinosaur film since Jurassic Park. And even that's presuming that we're not counting Jurassic Park's own sequels, since even Jurassic Park 3 is 

better than this one.

Dinosaurs are spotted near an isolated African rainforest, so a film crew heads out to investigate. A documentary maker, his sinister best friend, a disposable film crew and his horrible son all pile into a small aeroplane and head off in search of dinosaurs. The creatures try their best to hide ("doyouthinkhesaurus?") but when the plane crash lands deep in dino territory (which also happened in Jurassic Park 3) the crew find themselves dangerously out of their depth.

It looks and sounds a bit like the Land of the Lost movie from 2009, except no-one in it is as good as Danny McBride (people rarely are) and segments of it look like a Paranormal Activity. It's not as bad as Land of the Lost (hey, that 'best dinosaur film since Jurassic Park' might actually hold water, if the former had actually been a proper dinosaur film) but it's not particularly good either. The 12 rating doesn't hurt the film, although it may have been responsible for the Dinosaur Hunter's horrible son's prolonged screentime. He's like Jeff Goldblum's annoying daughter in The Lost World, but without Jeff Goldblum to counteract how boring and annoying she is.    

Grumpiness: Dissipated. 

Monsters and Troll Hunter did this sort of thing so much better. Dinosaur Hunter is a cute adventure action film with some good - but rarely outstanding - dinosaur action. Best dinosaur film since Jurassic Park? Well, maybe, but there wasn't that much competition.